Barack Obama, a self-identified Black man, is the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee for the upcoming presidential election in November. Despite all the naysayer arguments that he couldn’t win the nomination, either because he wasn’t black enough for black voters, or the he wasn’t experienced enough for white voters, he has in fact won the nomination. Does this make for a watershed moment in American history? Is it evidence of sorts that America has finally overcome its shameful treatment of black Americans?
The issue of the nation overcoming its past is no small matter. Many contemporary civil rights leaders, national as well as local, have hung their careers on the vitality of racism, and many have made the case that racism will always be with us. Some, like the New York University law professor Derrick Bell, a major force in something called “critical race theory,” argue that racism is the bedrock of nearly all that America is and does. Racial advocates such as Bell and others argue that racism has simply become subtle and has “gone underground,” all the while continuing to stunt the life opportunities of black Americans.
The issue of what Barack Obama’s run for the presidency means is therefore of no small importance – especially to Californians. This state is, after all, the most racially and ethnically diverse place in the nation. Californian’s are perhaps more comfortable with racial and ethnic differences and is also the place where intermarriage is most commonplace. Obama is the son of a white mother from Kansas and an African father from Kenya, a bi-racial reality that the people of California, and increasingly the nation, regard as something unworthy of notice or comment.
Whither or not Obama’s presidential bid results in his residency in the White House, his candidacy should serve to drive a few more nails in the coffin-lid of the age-old argument that America is an irredeemable racist country. And while he is not the nation’s first black presidential candidate, he is the first such candidate that has not represented a thinly-disguised racial agenda. This was the case when the civil rights activist Jesse Jackson ran in 1984 and again in 1988, and when the omnipresent activist Al Sharpton ran in 2004. Maverick Allan Keyes ran several times over the last few presidential seasons, but perhaps the less said about that the better.
The fact that a black man is viewed as a credible, competent and competitive candidate for the highest office in the land is remarkable, considering the fact that America was a slave state from 1619 to 1863, from the 1890s through the 1950s essentially relegated black Americans to the status of second-class citizens, and passed the last piece of major civil rights legislation in 1965. Today a majority of black Americans are solidly middle-class as well as being government officials, police chiefs, mayors, billionaires, Nobel laureates, sports heroes, business tycoons, film directors, and astronauts, among other successes. With the specter of Barack Obama being the nation’s 44th president the case for black victimization is awfully hard to make. Or, as comedian Wanda Sykes has said, “You can’t complain about the man keeping you down when you are the man.”
None of this means that racism has been totally eradicated from the American landscape (or that major social problems don’t lurk in urban communities). In a nation of 300 million people, undoubtedly there are a few bigots out there somewhere. However, what Obama’s success does indicate is that a substantial portion of Americans have decided that presidential candidates, the neighbor next door, or the person that they contemplate dating are to be judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin. When W.E.B. Du Bois stated that the “problem of the twentieth-century is the problem of the color line” he would have never imagined that race relations would alter so dramatically.
Having said all of this, I will not vote for Barack Obama. While I find his views regarding our need to transcend race compelling, I simultaneously find his positions on the economy, taxation, the size of government, and national defense unsettling. Nonetheless, win or lose, Obama will have done something quite important. He has nearly single-handedly rendered the arguments of the nation’s race-hustlers stale and irrelevant. That brings a smile to my face.